Dr Matthew Thornton
Senior Manager, Haydale Ltd & Secretary-General, International Rubber Conference Organisation, UK
Dr Thornton has a BSc (Hons) in Chemistry with Chemical Engineering and a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering. His first degree included a year working in industry, which he spent at DECHEMA e.V. in Frankfurt, Germany, carrying out research into conducting polymers for water treatment and palladium composite membranes for the removal of hydrogen from dehydrogenation reactions.
His PhD thesis was entitled “Catalytic Carbon Deposition on 3D Carbon Fibre Supports”, the PhD was funded as part of an EPSRC CASE Award in collaboration with Meggitt Aircraft Braking Systems (then, Dunlop Aerospace Braking Systems).
Following his studies, Dr Thornton spent 18 months as a KTP Associate at the University of Reading, researching novel materials for the removal of mercury from crematoria flue gases, before spending 7 years at the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining as both a Materials Advisor and the Polymer Sector Leader for the Materials Knowledge Transfer Network.
In August 2013, he joined NetComposites as a Project Manager and was responsible for the management of several UK Government and EU funded collaborative research and development projects in areas including natural fibre composites, recycled carbon fibre composites, non-destructive testing and graphene functionalised nanocomposites.
Dr Thornton joined Haydale Composite Solutions in April 2016 and is responsible for the management of a range of nanocomposite materials research, development and manufacturing programmes in both the commercial and grant funded sectors. He is also the Secretary-General for the International Rubber Conference Organisation